News Release
For Immediate Release: 12.17.25
Contact: John Manning, media@firstliberty.org
Direct: 972-941-4453
City of Tucson Bans Religious Speech at Holiday Festival
Banishing religious speech from public property is unconstitutional.
Tucson, AZ—First Liberty Institute sent a letter to the City of Tucson demanding local resident David Hoffman be allowed to share his religious beliefs on public ways at the Winterhaven Festival of Lights. Police threatened to arrest Hoffman and his friends unless they confined their religious activity to a barricaded zone away from event attendees.
You can read the letter here.
“The City of Tucson is unlawfully suppressing Mr. Hoffman’s speech by removing his religious expression from public property and separating his speech from fellow attendees by placing a barricade between them,” said Nate Kellum, Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute. “The city isolates religious speech for censorship. It’s unconstitutional. Like any other kind of speech, religious speech is protected under the First Amendment.”
On December 13, 2025, Hoffman and friends visited the Winterhaven neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona during the Winterhaven Festival of Lights to share their faith with attendees. They sought to share their Christian beliefs to those willing to listen or take their written materials. But police officers advised that their activity violated the festival’s solicitation policy which explicitly banned religious speech in the area. Hoffman and his group were told they must engage in their religious messaging within the confines of a barricaded zone, titled “Designated Space for Peaceful Messaging and Literature Distribution,” set up outside of the festival footprint near Fort Lowell Road.
In the letter, First Liberty attorneys informed the city, “Hoffman’s means of evangelistic speech, literature distribution and oral expression, are fully protected under the First Amendment…[a]nd, public streets, being the ’prototypical example of a public forum,’ are ideal places to have this expression.”
###
About First Liberty Institute
First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.
To arrange an interview, contact John Manning at media@firstliberty.org or by calling 972-941-4453.
 |
|
|
